Out of Ashes
Out of Ashes is American rock band Dead by Sunrise's first studio debut album from Chester Bennington of American rock band Linkin Park, which was released on October 13, 2009 worldwide under Warner Bros. Records to mixed reception. The album showcases both up-beat alternate songs and slow rock ballads. It is produced by Howard Benson and Bennington. This is the only studio album to feature Elias Andra for the drums. The album's lyrical contains many personal experiences from Bennington, before the album's production. Out of Ashes is described as "really dark" and "much more of a rock album" than the works for Linkin Park. History The first known song from the album is "Morning After" as an iTunes Bonus Track in Japan. It was originally performed by Chester Bennington while it was a remix by Julien-K that appeared on the soundtrack of the sequel to Underworld, Underworld: Evolution. Bennington had performed the song live at a concert acoustically in 2001. Out of Ashes was originally slated for a 2006 release, when the group was still known as Snow White Tan. It was soon pushed to an early 2007 release, but due to his commitments to Linkin Park, Bennington held the record off indefinitely. The Pulse of Radio posted that Bennington's solo album was still in production and would be finalized in the spring of 2008. At this point, Bennington described in an interview with Rolling Stone that he hoped to see the album released in 2009, placing his full commitment to the album. The band made its debut in 2008 at Marquee Theatre at Tempe, Arizona. He also said in some interviews that he would be working on the record while simultaneously writing Linkin Park's then-unreleased fourth studio album, and that the songs on the album developed during that process. Style and composition Bennington said about the album's style "felt and sounded really good", but "they weren't right stylistically for Linkin Park." and described the songs as "darker and moodier" than the sounds of Linkin Park. Linkin Park co-lead vocalist Mike Shinoda stated that, compared to Linkin Park's work, is "much more of a rock album Linkin Park's albums." Bennington also described the album in an interview with MTV that "It's really dark. It's like post-apocalyptic Blade Runner meets LSD." He also stated that all the songs were based on personal experiences. In the same interview, Bennington said, “It's not really all about one thing. It's about some dark stuff. It's about falling in love. It's about looking at the world from an outside perspective. All of those things add something a little different to the record. It does tell a story but, at the same time, each song does have its own life. I like the ebb and flow that the album has from the first song to the last.” As well as singing, Bennington also performs guitar and synthesizer on the album. All extra instrumental, programming and production was undertaken by Julien-K members Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck, Brandon Belsky, Elias Andra, and Anthony Valcic. Reception Out of Ashes received mixed to positive reviews among music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 59 based on 5 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Gregory Heaney of Allmusic gave a favorable review of the album, saying that "as a whole, Out of Ashes is a solid record and a fine opening volley for Bennington's solo work." Gary Graff of Billboard described Out of Ashes as "grittier and more punk-driven" than the works of Linkin Park. Faye Lewis of Rock Sound says that it "throws down anguished alt-rock and enough crunching guitars and intense lyrics to frighten off Linkin Park comparisons." Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone noted that the album is "oddly inert, lacking both the brute force and big choruses that raised Linkin Park to rap-rock godhead status." August Brown of The Los Angeles Times commenting that "Out of Ashes has moments of spark, it's more scattershot and less ambitious than the music Bennington makes with Linkin Park." Jon Pareles of The New York Times called Out of Ashes as "spacious, state of the art pop", but at the same time "shamelessly imitative", citing similarities to Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Green Day and Metallica. Track Listing All songs written and composed by Chester Bennington, Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck and Anthony Valcic. iTunes & Japanese Bonus Track iTunes Pre-Order Bonus Track Personnel ;Dead by Sunrise * Chester Bennington - vocals, guitar, synth * Amir Derakh - lead & rhythm guitar, synth, programming & bass guitar * Ryan Shuck - guitar, synth, beat box vocals on "In the Darkness" * Anthony Valcic - programming & synth * Brandon Belsky - bass guitar, additional synth & programming * Elias Andra - drums, percussion ;Production * Howard Benson * Chester Bennington (uncredited) Promotion and composition To promote Dead by Sunrise, the band went on tour with Chester Bennington's main musical project, Linkin Park. They also did many talk show spots. During August, the band toured with Linkin Park to perform "Fire", "Crawl Back In", and "My Suffering" at every show during Linkin Park's first encore break. "Inside of Me" was included as a b-side to the digital single of "Let Down". "Condemned" made an official appearance on the original motion picture soundtrack for the new Saw horror film Saw 3D (which Bennington starred as Evan), which was released on October 26, 2010. Bennington also played guitars and synthesizers on Out of Ashes, with production and programming undertaken by Amir Derakh, Brandon Belsky, Elias Andra, Ryan Shuck, and Anthony Valcic of Julien-K. Singles Out of Ashes spawned four singles such as "Crawl Back In" (released on August 18, 2009), "Let Down" (released on November 24, 2009), "Inside of Me" (released on February 2, 2010), and "Too Late" (released in 2010) in North America. The first single "Fire" was released on June 30, 2010 in Japan. The only promotional single that was spawned from the album is "In the Darkness", which was released in October 2009 when the cover of the promotional single was unveiled on March 2, 2010 by Abel Huamán via LPLive.New Single Dead By Sunrise "In The Darkness"? References Category:Dead by Sunrise Discography